I really only hate boss battles in RPGs. There have been many occasions where I've done everything right (completed all the sidequests, equipped the best armor, etc.) up until the boss battle, but I still take a disproportionate amount of damage than I deal, which makes winning completely impossible. Sure, I could go back and grind to increase my level, but is that really a measure of how good I am at playing the game? No, it's a measure of how I manage my free time! Also, if it's an RPG where the enemies don't respawn, you're completely screwed.

To me, boss battles just ruin the flow of a game.
Again, the things I love about games are the world, the story, the character development/building (when part of a game), interesting gameplay, good mechanics.
Stopping all of that to figure out the right movement and button-mashing for half an hour or more, sometimes stopping me cold in the game (I have quit multiple games because there was a boss battle that was harder than the game was good), is just enough to kill a game for me.

If done correctly, boss fights don't interrupt the flow of a game but are part and parcel of it. In Zelda games, for instance, you enter a dungeon with the anticipation of facing a boss at the end of it, and that boss tests the abilities and skills you've learned/acquired over the course of that dungeon. It's a culminating effect. If we're talking about flow, it's less like the flow of a river and more like the rhythm of waves: a rising action, a crest, a denouement, and downtime before the next wave. It's a matter of building and releasing tension.

However, I would agree that not every game needs to adopt that particular structure, and there are many games that would be better without boss battles but include them because they're such a common trope. It's expected, whether or not it should be.

I personally enjoy boss battles. They were often my favorite part of a game when I was a kid. Nowadays, my feelings tend to vary from game to game. I still love Metroid bosses (even the insanely difficult ones). In DK: Tropical Freeze (the most recent game I played), the bosses are fine, but not nearly as much fun as the regular stages, with their endlessly inventive platforming.

Ma`crol´o`gy
n. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

So, Tyranny is the only modern crpg I feel is necessary to replay, and I am, I'm in the middle of the rebel/anarchist path of the game on a second go. And the actual differences in the narrative, down to how characters in your own group interact, and who's in that group is so fucking good. I recently binged my way through Wasteland 2, both Pillars and Torment: Tides of Numenara, all those games are interesting in their own ways, and enjoyably, even well written games. But Tyranny does things to the classic crpg morality dilemmas that I feel are completely bold.

Bandy Greensacks wrote:I wouldn't call either of those games FPS, either. Metroid Prime combat has more in common with GTA's lock-on system than standard FPS game play and Resident Evil is third person.

I agree that very few FPS do it well. DOOM always does, though.

I realized that Resident Evil isn't FPS about an hour after posting this. I guess it has a similar enough vibe that my brain muddled the two.

And yeah, the Prime games. While you do shoot things from a first person perspective, they are definitely on the fringes of the genre. They're also heavily influenced by the 2D adventure platformers that preceded them.

Ma`crol´o`gy
n. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

Macrology wrote:If done correctly, boss fights don't interrupt the flow of a game but are part and parcel of it. In Zelda games, for instance, you enter a dungeon with the anticipation of facing a boss at the end of it, and that boss tests the abilities and skills you've learned/acquired over the course of that dungeon. It's a culminating effect. If we're talking about flow, it's less like the flow of a river and more like the rhythm of waves: a rising action, a crest, a denouement, and downtime before the next wave. It's a matter of building and releasing tension.

However, I would agree that not every game needs to adopt that particular structure, and there are many games that would be better without boss battles but include them because they're such a common trope. It's expected, whether or not it should be.

I personally enjoy boss battles. They were often my favorite part of a game when I was a kid. Nowadays, my feelings tend to vary from game to game. I still love Metroid bosses (even the insanely difficult ones). In DK: Tropical Freeze (the most recent game I played), the bosses are fine, but not nearly as much fun as the regular stages, with their endlessly inventive platforming.

Are you the kind of gamer that likes technically difficult if sometimes repetitive games like Demon's/Dark Souls and/or side-scrolling platforms?
Cause I completely get that these games are made for people who love them. I am just not one of them. When original DOOM was released that was the end of that for me. And DOOM (not the new one which clearly has boss battles, but which I sort of grudgingly enjoyed, even while I didn't, I mean the '93 DOOM) had these sort of boss-battleISH moments in it when you were faced with a sort of wave (usually when entering a new or secret room) of more and harder baddies while at some sort of disadvantage, rather suddenly, but that sort of do is fully within the flow of the game: of course you can't advance until solving this complex problem and winning this challenging fight, this place is crawling with demons, including a new one you haven't seen that is just a bitch and you're gonna have to figure out how to kill. That's different from, play now stops while you go mano a mano against one big bad in a confined space over and over again until you defeat it. They're kinda the same, but they feel different. Resistance: Fall Of Man also did this really well where you would come to a new area or the end of the one you were in and there would be an interesting challenge of almost overwhelming enemies, but it felt completely within the flow of the game.
But when I'm playing a game and play just suddenly stops and maybe they actually have like a brief cut-scene that shows how, aha!, you have just stumbled upon THIS enemy, here goes the next half hour of your life and there is no more game til you defeat it, muahaha, I get a sinking disappointment and sometimes wonder if this is a game I even want to play.
Maybe the best recent example of what I DO like is Horizon: Zero Dawn, which is literally chock-full of boss-battles that are seamlessly integrated into the flow of the game. And you only actually HAVE TO even play them in the tutorial phase of the game, the rest of the game you can actually just avoid them if you want, though the game will not be "completed", or you can pass by them and come back around when you don't feel like you're in the middle of exploration or some other objective you have. I'm speaking of things like having to take down the different dinos for the first time or maybe later having to face them in a larger group or backed up by other kinds when you just learned how to defeat one of them. What the game DOESN'T do, is trap you in a loop.
AHA! In the course of writing this post, I have discovered why I hate boss-battles. I hate being trapped in a loop that just repeats over and over again, frustratingly and ultimately boringly to me, and there is no game until I escape the loop. I have just flat quit several games during these loops. I am probably about to quit one right now, Uncharted 2, because I just don't care at all about this boss-battle and I've done enough of them so far that I'm just frustrated and annoyed with the game and care less about seeing how the game ends than I do about not having to play this stupid boss-battle mini-game over and over again.
So that's where I'm at. I was wondering if anyone else felt this way. Cause I know lots of people like the other or those Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne games wouldn't exist. Demon's Souls, the only one of those I played, is the ultimate example of the kind of game I NEVER want to play.

Edit- Sorry, that was really long, but it just poured out as I was kind of figuring out my own feelings on the subject as I typed it.

I've never played Dark Souls, but I am a fan of platformers, shmups, etc. For instance, I enjoyed Cuphead, which is mostly pitting yourself against outrageously demanding boss battles.

Your grief against the jarring circularity of boss battles makes sense to me. Most of the games I play where boss battles feel natural (and well made) are where you get to decide when to fight the boss (a la Zelda) or platformers/shmups where the level or world culminates in a boss battle. Although speaking of Resident Evil and Metroid, I like the growing sense of dread and excitement in those games when you know you're getting close to a boss but don't know when the fight will begin or quite what to expect.

Ma`crol´o`gy
n. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

After giving it some thought, I've decided that the best classic Mario stage is 8-1 from Super Mario Bros. 3.

I've never liked the final stretch of Super Mario World leading up to Bowser's castle. What is The Valley of the Bowser other than a repeat of Vanilla Dome? Dark World, by contrast, actually feels like a proper final world. I like that 8-1 recalls 6-3 from Super Mario Bros:

It takes a familiar setting and drains it of color, giving it a lifeless look. 8-3 even ups the creepiness by having the cave theme play over the level. I also like the random, out of place Boo that appears in the middle of the level. What makes this stage special, though, is that every single inch of it is memorable. It's best played without Raccoon Mario in order to really appreciate the design. I'd say Outrageous from Super Mario World is the most "fun" level in classic Mario (without the cape and Yoshi!) but 8-1 in SMB3 has more to say.

I have similar feelings towards Scrap Brain Zone Act I from Sonic 1. It's constantly saying new things every step of the way and never outstays its welcome.

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I always wanted to do a "best stages in platforming" list when General Discussion was still a thing. This is a nice way to get that out of my system.

Gave up on Uncharted 2, while dicking around the final boss-battle for about the 8th or 9th time, deciding, "why am I doing this?"
Making it the second (of two) Uncharted game I quit before finishing.
Now a few hours into Prey.

Oh, I'll definitely continue listing some favorites / ones that are memorable. Over the last several months, I've been playing many classic games just to see if I actually wanted to do a list. I discovered that the answer is... not really. I'm truly done with lists. Or at least ones with write-ups. I'd rather just do posts like the one above where I focus on one game at a time without worrying about any sort of order.

I'd also like to talk about some of my favorite locations in indie gaming.

Another thing I forgot to mention about 8-1 is how it underlines how far we've journeyed. It literally looks like a Grass Land level only corrupted by Bowser's influence. 8-2, another really good level, does the same thing only this time it looks like a level from Desert Land.

Ace wrote:Should have just lowered the difficulty. Also the Uncharted 1 boss battle is so easy after you look it up. Uncharted 2 I barely remember it lol.

I don't think it's probably that hard of a boss-battle, just a matter of time before I got through it, but I just get so bored doing the same thing over and over again, I just said, "nah, I'm good".
Wasn't mad, just didn't care enough to do it.

Wooley wrote:
I don't think it's probably that hard of a boss-battle, just a matter of time before I got through it, but I just get so bored doing the same thing over and over again, I just said, "nah, I'm good".
Wasn't mad, just didn't care enough to do it.

Deschain wrote:I been hearing good things about Hollow Knight. $15 on a Switch. Waddya all think?

I like it. It's a Metroidvania game that's heavily inspired by Dark Souls (campfire-like save points, difficult boss battles, etc.)
My main problem with it is that it's not always clear where you're supposed to go, what you're supposed to do next, who you're supposed to talk to, etc. It's best to have a FAQ handy.

I think what makes the famous shockwave room in INSIDE so haunting is not the admittedly strong sound design that everyone focuses on but rather the inscrutable background. What exactly is going on back there? It reminds me of dreams that I've had where I walk into a room and am taken aback by the vastness of the room that is before me.

I wish that Playdead would just make a walking simulator, though. Why even have the typical crate pushing, lever pulling tasks? They add nothing to the game. Why have even have the threat of death when there are checkpoints every 20 seconds? The tension of just being inside a nightmare scenario is enough.

Never played Inside, but I did watch the full Let's Play RadBrad did for it upon release, and remember that section of the game in particular as just one of many examples of that game seeming to keep things fresh by constantly introducing new (sometimes, scary) game mechanics to play with and overcome.

Torgo wrote:While it seems to be universally loathed, I actually really like No Man's Sky. Granted, aside from briefly playing Stardew Valley and Subnautica, this is the first survival game I've really sunk my teeth into, so I barely have any similar gaming experiences with which to compare it. While there's the joy of exploration, crafting, resource management and taking in the atmosphere and visuals, there's also something thrilling about having an entire universe as your playground. I can see playing this becoming a serious problem akin to my 5-year World of Warcraft addiction.

Well, that was a very short-lived addiction.
The joy of exploration disappated the more I played because every planet and solar system is essentially the same, maybe except for the rare minerals each one contains. This combined with a feeling that I was making little to no progress in spite of the time I spent playing means that I'm putting this one away for a while. Maybe the survival - perhaps mainteance is a better word - genre of video games just isn't for me.

I'm going through Super Mario Odyssey and I find it interesting how the end of the journey doesn't matter. After the credits roll, the adventure continues. And not in that you can replay it. No, it truly continues. The story moves on, characters travel between levels, new challenges and areas become available. Heck, the level you unlock after supposedly beating the game, the place you're deposited in following the final boss battle, is one of the better locations. Many of the best platforming challenges and most inventive special stages are only accessible during the post-game. The main campaign takes about ten hours to beat; the full experience likely spans over 60 hours.

In a sense, it's like the game's saying: "Finishing the story is an afterthought. We included an ending and a final boss because that's what's expected. But the meat and potatoes come later."

Breath of the Wild is similar. I've clocked about 130 hours into it. Probably one of the greatest video game experiences I've ever had. Yet I haven't finished it. I've walked all the way up to the castle, explored its hallways, made it up to the chamber where (I guess) you fight Ganon, then turned around and paraglided back into the outlying fields. I still have shrines to discover, after all. There's no sense of urgency to finish the game. Yes, non-playable characters try to instil that sense of urgency through dialogue, but it doesn't work. The game's world suggests soothing, tranquil exploration. Like you have all the time in the world to just walk under the trees or into caves. I have no hurry to get to the end. I could've done that 60 hours ago. And, anyway, I doubt anything in the game's linear narrative will compare, in terms of sheer thrill, to finding a particularly large horse in an out-of-the-way corner of the map. And that's a totally optional discovery most players may not even get to.

So, these are Nintendo's two masterpieces from 2017, and both are, in a sense, similar: they're large playgrounds you can explore and have fun with. Zelda, of course, is going for a more emotional, elegiac mood. It's probably a more profound experience. But Mario's ludic paradises are beautiful, too. Thing is, both have linear narratives that kind of clash with the gameplay concept, especially Zelda. Mario deals with it better by giving you an early ending that, while beautifully staged, is quickly left behind in favor of a very long, very involved post-game.

Mario Odyssey is the first Mario platformer that I didn't really enjoy at all. I got up to the New Donk festival before calling it quits. A lot of fans defend "open world" Mario by saying that each kingdom feel more like an actual place than the just-for-Mario obstacle courses of other titles, but I felt more of a sense of awe and wonder at many of Galaxy 1/2's levels than anything in Odyssey.

Kenji wrote:Mario Odyssey is the first Mario platformer that I didn't really enjoy at all. I got up to the New Donk festival before calling it quits. A lot of fans defend "open world" Mario by saying that each kingdom feel more like an actual place than the just-for-Mario obstacle courses of other titles, but I felt more of a sense of awe and wonder at many of Galaxy 1/2's levels than anything in Odyssey.

Don't really get this. I'm awe-struck at least three times an hour with Odyssey. It's the game I wish Sunshine had been, but wasn't.

I am enjoying Prey.
It's slow and it takes a lot of figuring out and, like many games I've played in the last few years, you don't really know what to do with the things you have until you get about halfway through.
But I am enjoying exploring this large open space and gradually unwinding the spools of stories that led up to whatever happened before I came on. And am finally starting to enjoy developing my character's abilities and the strategies that come from them.
Anyone else played this?

Kenji wrote:Mario Odyssey is the first Mario platformer that I didn't really enjoy at all. I got up to the New Donk festival before calling it quits. A lot of fans defend "open world" Mario by saying that each kingdom feel more like an actual place than the just-for-Mario obstacle courses of other titles, but I felt more of a sense of awe and wonder at many of Galaxy 1/2's levels than anything in Odyssey.

While I probably prefer the Galaxy games, I can't imagine not enjoying Mario Odyssey. It's just so lovingly crafted and detailed. New Donk City is everything I ever wanted from an open world Mario game.

Ma`crol´o`gy
n. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

Mario Odyssey isn't rewarding in the traditional sense, but it has the greatest Mario controls of all time and is wonderfully therapeutic. I love racking up as a many moons as I can before returning to the Odyssey.

I'm actually a fan of Sunshine, not so much for the main quest (which was only intermittently entertaining), but as Kenji said, for the pure playground fun of the worlds and the dynamism of the controls.

Also, I wouldn't call the 2D section mere nostalgia pandering (although nostalgia certainly plays a major role). I see it as an homage to the game's roots -- the recognition of a legacy -- and the fact that they're seamlessly (and often quite inventively) integrated into the texture of the worlds keeps them from feeling forced.

Ma`crol´o`gy
n. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

Kenji wrote:Maybe calling them nostalgia pandering is a little harsh because it was a pretty cute idea, but all I could think about was how much better the precision platforming is in the actual Super Mario Bros.

Kenji wrote:After giving it some thought, I've decided that the best classic Mario stage is 8-1 from Super Mario Bros. 3.

I've never liked the final stretch of Super Mario World leading up to Bowser's castle. What is The Valley of the Bowser other than a repeat of Vanilla Dome? Dark World, by contrast, actually feels like a proper final world. I like that 8-1 recalls 6-3 from Super Mario Bros:

It takes a familiar setting and drains it of color, giving it a lifeless look. 8-3 even ups the creepiness by having the cave theme play over the level. I also like the random, out of place Boo that appears in the middle of the level. What makes this stage special, though, is that every single inch of it is memorable. It's best played without Raccoon Mario in order to really appreciate the design. I'd say Outrageous from Super Mario World is the most "fun" level in classic Mario (without the cape and Yoshi!) but 8-1 in SMB3 has more to say.

I have similar feelings towards Scrap Brain Zone Act I from Sonic 1. It's constantly saying new things every step of the way and never outstays its welcome.

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I always wanted to do a "best stages in platforming" list when General Discussion was still a thing. This is a nice way to get that out of my system.

I like this. I wouldn't know where to start if I were to come up with a Best Classic Mario Stage but this is a solid choice.

I'm one of those rare breed of person who considers Ninja Gaiden II to be the worst of the trilogy. It looked the best, but those shadow clones were awkward and distracting. Ninja Gaiden III's sword extension power-up was a lot more practical.

Pretty solid list. Glad to see Crystalis on there.
I'm surprised Bubble Bobble is so high. I didn't know it was that highly regarded.
Also, Lolo 3 is probably the weakest Lolo game. The puzzles aren't as good as they are in the first two games and the RPG elements don't really add much.

God, I love NES games. Maybe it's just because I'm at work, but I could easily spend an entire day playing them.
Speaking of work, at my last job, the company security policy didn't block an NES emulator website I found. Thank goodness they didn't track my activity.

Kenji wrote:
I'm one of those rare breed of person who considers Ninja Gaiden II to be the worst of the trilogy. It looked the best, but those shadow clones were awkward and distracting. Ninja Gaiden III's sword extension power-up was a lot more practical.

I never got into Ninja Gaiden III. Played it a bit, but I don't even know if I ever finished it. To be honest, I really liked the way the story played on the second one. The cut-scenes were excellent, and I really didn't mind the shadow clones. If anything, I saw it as yet another challenge in a game that was already extremely challenging ("Damn eagles!!")

Torgo wrote:Pretty solid list. Glad to see Crystalis on there.
I'm surprised Bubble Bobble is so high. I didn't know it was that highly regarded.

I was also surprised by Bubble Booble. I never played that game a lot, so I don't think I can judge it fairly, but if it were up to me, I would've had Punch-Out! up there. I also would've like to see Metroid a bit higher.

Torgo wrote:Also, Lolo 3 is probably the weakest Lolo game. The puzzles aren't as good as they are in the first two games and the RPG elements don't really add much.

I also agree, although I'm not that bothered since I saw it as a representative for the franchise. But yeah, the first two are better, IMO.

Torgo wrote:God, I love NES games. Maybe it's just because I'm at work, but I could easily spend an entire day playing them.

Speaking of work, at my last job, the company security policy didn't block an NES emulator website I found. Thank goodness they didn't track my activity.

I have several emulators in my computer, although I haven't played them in a long time. My cubicle being right in the line-of-sight of my boss probably wouldn't let me spend that much time playing, though